This invention relates in general to handgun storage containers that are secured with a locking mechanism and in particular to handgun storage containers that are designed to be opened quickly, in case of an emergency, without having to use a key or a combination or any tool whatsoever.
There are over one hundred million households in the United States that keep handguns for self-defense. Recent surveys have shown that many of these households keep a loaded handgun which is not locked up in a safe place such as a storage container. The reason for this is that in an extreme emergency there may not be time to load the handgun nor find the key to un-lock it.
As a result of all these un-secured handguns thousands of children are killed or injured each year in shooting accidents involving these handguns.
Handgun storage containers that are secured with a keyed locking mechanism typically share a common disadvantage, namely they cannot be opened in an emergency if the key is not readily available. Likewise, handgun storage containers that are secured with a combination locking mechanism may not be opened quickly in case of an emergency because the owner may be panicked and not be able to recall the combination or may misdial the access code. In either case precious time may be lost in trying to open the handgun storage container when under the pressure of a life threatening situation.
There are a few handgun storage containers that incorporate springs and cams in certain ways so as to prevent a small child or adolescent from opening the handgun storage container yet still allow an adult to access the handgun without having to use a key or combination or any tool whatsoever. However, no device is known that incorporates the use of tempered glass to accomplish this objective.
A keyword search of all patents on file as of Mar. 25, 1994 was performed at the Marriot library at the University of Utah. The key words were "FIREARM" and "GLASS" or "GUN" and "GLASS". Two hundred and thirty eight patents were found that included these keywords. The abstract of each of the patents found was reviewed but none referred to a handgun storage container that incorporated a tempered glass panel for the purpose of accessing the handgun storage container by breaking the glass.
A container was constructed and various mounting arrangements of the sheet of tempered glass were tested. It was found that when all four sides of the sheet of tempered glass were supported one could hit the sheet of tempered glass with their bare fist as hard as one could without causing injury to one's fist and the glass did not break. Next the sheet of tempered glass was supported on only the long sides and then only on the short sides, with the same result. The tests were repeated with diminishing amounts of support on either edge until the supports themselves failed and the glass dropped into the container, unbroken. It was evident that for the size, configuration, and materials being used that a way had to be discovered to cause the glass to break when struck with a person's bare fist.
We asked people who were experienced in working with tempered glass if they had any suggestions. They all said that if you hit tempered glass on the edge or on a corner then it would easily break. We did not want to develop a complicated mechanism that would impact an edge or corner nor did we want to have to depend on any sort of tool nor any special instructions as to how to break the glass. (Paramedics are trained to use a special tool to break automobile windows to extract crash victims.)
As we continued our experimentation we took a sheet of tempered glass, gripped one corner with the jaws of a pair of pliers, and quickly rotated the pliers downward. The glass shattered with very little effort! We had found the solution. Namely, all we would have to do is restrain one corner of the sheet of tempered glass and provide sufficient shear supports to produce the desired resistance to breaking and then when the glass rotated inward past the shear supports the corner of the sheet of tempered glass that was restrained would be broken off and the sheet of tempered glass would readily shatter.